Wang Zhi-Hong’s work aims to highlight the “importance of text in Chinese graphic design”

Taiwanese designer Wang Zhi-Hong creates elegant book designs, and through his work he hopes to convey the “importance of text in the role of Chinese graphic design”, using it as a decorative element as well as a way to communicate information. Wang hopes to put “Chinese in harmony with other languages, and share the results with non-Chinese regions” and as a result, his work is text and type-heavy often placing different scripts next to each other to create interesting dialogues. The designer is also influenced by the late Swiss graphic designer and teacher Josef Müller-Brockmann for his strict functional criteria for design, that was often offset by dynamic compositions.

We’ve shared Wang’s work many times on the site before and his ability to take the contents of a book and condense it into pleasingly simple book designs only seems to be getting stronger. “The process of sorting information” is what the designer enjoys most on a project and the ways in which he is able to “express [his] understanding and imagination with a better form”.

Most recently, Wang has worked on The Contents of the Times, Formosa Heat, and L’abécédaire de la littérature. “Their similarities are all connected through the environment and language I live in,” says Wang. “And I really got pleasure and inspiration from the process”. With subtle colour palettes and thoughtful graphics to accompany refined typography, these elements come together to form a sophisticated aesthetic that’s become Wang’s signature.

Every month, ten people descend upon a basement studio in Dublin’s historic Merrion Square. The streets are lined with grand Georgian houses and pristine iron gates protect a well-kept public park. Each person is there to attend a two-day workshop organised by a tenaciously talented Welsh woman in order to learn how to make film props.

Earlier this year fashion icon Alexa Chung had her many fans reeling with the news of her own label. The campaign saw the model, muse, presenter and writer put her trend-spotting taste to use in creating her own collection. Such an exciting move from Alexa had to look slick and playful in every aspect, from the clothes to the branding, which was created by Studio Frith.

“‘Does it have to be readable?’ is a main theme in a lot of my work,” says Icelandic-born and Berlin-based graphic designer Greta Thorkels. This approach to design isn’t a usual one, but by turning design on its head Greta is carving her own eclectic graphic path.

Afrika is a design studio based in Switzerland, founded by Florian Jakober and Michael Zehnder. The studio works on a variety of projects, most recently finding itself designing custom typefaces for other studios and agencies. “It’s nice to have clients that understand as much about typography as we do. This way of working also allows us to work in bigger teams and learn a lot from everybody,” says Afrika.

If you go down to Highgate Woods in London today, you might be in for a bit of a surprise. Among the dog walkers, the frazzled parents searching for their kids and the forestry workers making sure that the ancient woodland is being preserved, you might, if you look carefully, find one of the most prolific artists and illustrators working in the UK. Highgate Woods, all 28 hectares of it, is Noma Bar’s ‘office’. Everyday, come rain or shine, the graphic artist is there, somewhere, armed with his notebooks and pens, working through ideas that will appear in their final forms in newspapers, magazines, as part of a campaign or a gallery.

Inspired by “wrong” design and a fondness for “flaws and errors”, aptly named Wrong Studio has been championing well-executed typography and graphic expertise by adding a twist of their own signature style. The studio was founded in 2013 by two colleagues, Andreas Peitersen and Jess Andersen, who decided it was time to steer things in a more personal direction. Since its launch, the duo have dabbled in various projects with a close-knit and collaborative ethos. We spoke to Andreas to find out more about some of its most studio-defining projects.